


Extra Pocket in the Haversack

by chaya



Series: Critical Role Drabbles [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Fluff, Food, Found Family, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2019-09-28 22:10:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 6,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17191232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaya/pseuds/chaya
Summary: Another collection of prompts and drabbles.





	1. Fifty Words Exactly

> prompt: jester casts sending to molly before they find out if he's back?

* * *

 

“So we tried to find this guy today, to talk to him, but he was on the docks acting really sneaky, and… well, we got him in trouble? With these pirates? So we fought and…. we have a ship now? I also split a guy’s head open with a”

**

“The ocean is really pretty, we’ve got new friends, the tortle is funny and sweet. Caduceus is feeling better. I talked to him, he’s been kind of stressed out, and, you know, I think that’s fair? Because he nearly drowned the other day, and he’s used to living with dead“

**

“I don’t really know what’s going on with Fjord but I hate Avantika, she just thinks she’s sooo great… I really like my new paints. I think you’d like them too. I think about you a lot. I think Beau does too. We all do but Caleb doesn’t like to“

**

“We’re running away now. Our ship has a new name and it’s pretty funny, it’s dirty, you would laugh but I don’t want to tell you what it is. I like to not tell you everything so I can tell you things in person. I know that you probably won’t“

**

“Caduceus and I are using magic every day to make the boat move faster, and make food and water for everyone. It’s cool to watch the ship bounce on the water. Fjord says it’s called hydroplaning. I have to save my spells so I might not send a message for”

 


	2. Clayleb and scars

> prompt: Some good calming Caduceus x Caleb?

 

* * *

 

 

“Are they,” Caleb swallows and lets go of his shirt, letting it fall onto the floor. “are they alright?”

Caduceus is only an arm’s reach away, but Caleb flinches in surprise when the taller man’s hand reaches out - slower, now - and brushes the pads of his fingertips along the scar on his bicep. Then, his forearm, his chest. They web together and make endless networks of ridges for Caduceus to trace, and Caleb doesn’t know what to do but stand there and take it. He had  meant ‘are they alright’ like ‘do they disgust you’, like ‘do you want to change your mind and stop kissing’, and here Caduceus is tracing them and touching him  _so softly_.

“They’re all fairly old,” Caduceus says quietly, as if that’s an answer.

“J-ja,” Caleb confirms after a beat.

“Are they still tender?” Caduceus asks. “I can try to avoid them when I hold you… your hips don’t have any, so I can-”

“You can touch me anywhere,” Caleb answers in a rush.

The firbolg is smiling. “Then, I guess I have to admit I’m not sure what you’re asking about, if they’re alright.”

Caleb breathes out.


	3. Out of Spells

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:
> 
> jester patching up cad or vise versa because they're all out of spells

“You’re stable now,” Jester mumbles, fighting back a wet cough. “Don’t move too much, okay?”

Caduceus, still unconscious, does not respond. The lichen with anti-infection properties is packed tightly into the bandages on his chest, but they’re still poking out here and there. She probably used too much.

“I have to go check on Beau again.” Jester gets to her feet, two slow breaths, another, and totters over to the other side of the room where Beau is sitting on the floor in a messy pile of blankets and pillows pulled off of the bed.

“Heyyy,” Beau says when Jester comes into her eyeline, smiling weakly. She still looks clammy. Jester forces a smile in return, brushing Beau’s hair out of her eyes.

“Still feeling dizzy?” Jester asks.

“I feel way better,” Beau replies. Tired but certain. “You don’t have to worry about me, okay?”

“Yeah, but you still lost a lot of blood, you need to drink some  _wa_ ter, maybe eat something… you got something in your pack?”

“Yeah, it’s.” Beau points toward the door, wincing a little when her arm fully extends. “Sorry, can you…?”

“Yeah, of course.” Jester takes another slow breath and leans against the wall a little to get there, bending down, pulling the pack across the floor and bringing it to Beau. Beau immediately pulls her water skin out, drinking heavily.

“Is someone keeping watch?”

“Fjord is,” Jester says, for the second time. Beau definitely has a concussion. “Caleb and Nott are resting in the other room.”

“ _Fuck_  ghosts.”

“Yeah.” Jester looks tiredly around the empty room, the cobwebs in the corner, and wonders who used to live here. Maybe that’s who they just fought. “Keep sitting up, okay? Don’t go to sleep.”

“I won’t,” Beau promises, but Jester knows she’ll have to keep an eye on her. “I’m fine, I promise.”

She isn’t. None of them are. Even Fjord’s sitting watch with a busted arm and a barely-healed crossbow bolt wound in his shoulder. It was all Caduceus and Jester could do to bring Nott back before time ran out, to save Caleb from his own burn wounds, to-

“-Caduceus?”

“Huh?” Jester looks over toward Caduceus. “He’s stable. He’s asleep.”

“You two saved our asses.” Beau is quiet.

“Yeah.” Jester doesn’t feel like it. She feels like she’s never been this tired in her life “We really coulda used Yasha.”

“ _Yeah_ ,” Beau agrees. She coughs and winces immediately.

“Remember, stay awake. I can fix you up more in the morning.”

“I will. You get some rest, though.”

Jester nods and walks back to the bare mattress, where Caduceus is lying perfectly still. The head wound is closed, but the rivulet of blood remains, drying in the damp air and staining a long, thin streak in his tangled hair. Jester sits on the edge of the bed and fusses with it a minute, using a rag to dab the worst of it off and then finger-combing it back until he looks like himself again. His ear sticks back out at its normal position now, soft and grey, and Jester smiles.

She needs to rest too, as much as she wants to keep an eye on Beau. She’s no use to anyone if she doesn’t sleep.

Caduceus doesn’t look worried. He looks serene, still. Grey. A little like death. The idea pains Jester and she puts a hand on his arm, underneath the armor, reassuring herself with the warm skin and faint pulse under her fingertips.

“It’ll be better tomorrow,” she says, not sure who she’s talking to. Beau definitely can’t hear her.

Caduceus is warm and still. Jester takes two slow breaths to lift her feet up off the floor, swing them onto the bed, and another two to lay her body down next to Caduceus. Laying on this side, she won’t disturb the bandages on her thigh. Fjord literally wasn’t himself when he made that slice. Jester knows that, but she’s not sure  _he_  does. He could barely look her in the eye when he offered to stay awake and watch the two bedrooms.

“Tomorrow,” Jester repeats, barely audible against the strange texture of Caduceus’s chest plate. The shell of some beast she’s never seen before. Colorful and long dead. She wipes her face a few times, taking more slow breaths, and doesn’t realize when she starts to nod off.


	4. Caleb's Transmuter's Stone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> valakiir: Caleb using one of his 14th lvl transmuter’s stone abilities
> 
> (for reference: https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/classes/wizard#SchoolofTransmutation)

The warlock grins through the bars, his rotting teeth barely visible in the dim light. “And how are you going to save your friend, with no spells left at your disposal? And separated from your precious healers?”

“With this neat rock I found,” Caleb says tonelessly, and feels Nott jolt to life underneath underneath his right hand, just as the transmuter’s stone disintegrates in his left.

“Fuck,” Nott coughs, sitting up a little and looking around. Caleb has not stopped staring the warlock down. The warlock has stopped smiling.

“Also, ze goth woman behind you doesn’t need spells.”


	5. Poisoned Caleb

> Caleb gets poisoned or something and can't be healed yet for some reason?

* * *

 

 

“Are we near the ocean again?”

“No,” Jester says, frowning down at Caleb’s wild-eyed expression. He isn’t focusing on her, looking from side to side instead, and it’s making her worried.

“Then what is that sound?” Caleb tries to sit up again, and Fjord kneels down behind him to push him back down by the shoulders. “It. It is a  _roaring_. If it is not the water, maybe - maybe a beast-”

“Hallucinations aren’t just visions,” Caduceus says quietly. He’s rolling the small dart between his fingers, still red-tipped from where it had been in Caleb’s neck. “You may hear things, or people, who aren’t there.”

Fjord winces. “So it’s poisoning him _and_  making him hear … shit that ain’t there?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know for  _sure_ ,” the firbolg says with an apologetic frown, “but I don’t see any sign that the poison is… actively hurting him. If his liver was shutting down, he’d be in pain. If his nervous system was being attacked, he’d be seizing up, or losing his vision, perhaps.”

Molly pipes up: “This is a bad trip?”

“Actually, that’s…” Caduceus see-saws his hand. “Not an awful way of putting it.” He gestures around the jungle. “We were in a group and overpowered them, but imagine if they’d gotten more of us with these darts. Or… someone out here, on their own, with nobody to keep them from walking into one of those man-eating flowers?”

Beau shudders. “Why do they  _smell_  so gross?”

“Like dookie,” Jester agrees with a scrunched nose.

“I think that might be to attract insects and rodents,” Caduceus says, and clearly becomes lost in theorizing about this new plant until Beau leans over and pokes him. “Oh! I think Caleb’s poison is a temporary hallucinogen.”

Beau holds up a hand quickly, drawing everyone’s attention. “If… if he gets  _freaked out_ …?”

“Fuck,” Jester mumbles under her breath.

“Okay, finally, something I can help with.” Molly pulls one of the hut’s little chairs up to the door, wedging it underneath the handle and taking a look at the windows with ratty curtains and no glass. “You guys finish barricading this little place up, we can rest for the night until it’s worn off or we aren’t too exhausted to heal him. I’ll be his buddy.”

“His buddy,” Fjord echoes uncertainly.

“His buddy,” Molly confirms with a serene flounce over to Caleb on the floor. “Caleb?” Nothing. “Bren?”

“Hallo,” Bren mumbles.

“How’re you feeling, love?”

“Warum sprechst du Kommon?”

“Common, yes, that’s what I need you to speak to me.”

“Common.”

“Yeah. Feeling alright?”

Caleb’s eyes move down almost imperceptibly to the floor. “This cloud is very small.”

“We won’t fall off,” Molly promises. “It’s nice up here, isn’t it?”

Caleb looks around with deep hesitation, but soon Molly is getting down on the floor next to him, folding a hand under his head and tucking the other into Caleb’s. “Nice,” Caleb echoes after a while.

“What color is our cloud?”

“Pink,” Caleb says, as if it’s strange that Molly can’t tell this on his own.

Molly looks down to the rotting floorboard and blinks. “Right you are,” he chirps, and fixes Caleb with a winning, fanged, smile.


	6. Couples Counselor Caduceus Clay

> Caduceus counseling Mollymauk on his crush (Caleb)?

* * *

 

 

“He’s not  _ready_ ,” Molly explains.

The firbolg only tilts his head, inspecting the campfire a moment before gently hanging the teapot on the wrought iron hook.

“I’m not saying he isn’t an adult. I’m just - the shit Beau caught me up on, the, the Bren stuff? The crystals in his arms? His  _parents?_ He’s like a wound-up ball of pain and that’s, you know, not something I can hit on without risking  _bruising_  it.”

Caduceus makes an ambiguous sound as he uses his sleeve to polish the interior of the small ceramic cups.

“You see how he’s absolutely thrown himself into his friendship with Nott? Don’t get me wrong, I  _like_  Nott. And I trust her. …I trust her to be loyal to Caleb, anyway. But don’t you think Caleb would have locked in with the first person who showed him the first ounce of kindness, no matter who they were? Do you think he’s in a healthy enough place that he could turn down kindness if he didn’t really reciprocate?”

Caduceus uses a small cloth to lift the lid of the teapot, peeking in to see if a simmer has begun.

“I’m saying I could either give him a panic attack, make him think I was trying to manipulate him like  _that creepy human guy who took him under his wing_ , or, maybe worst, he’d just be like ‘sure! Whatever you want! I don’t even like men, but I don’t remember what hugs feel like’. …and I wouldn’t realize, until I was too deep in, that it didn’t matter who I was. You know?”

“Of course,” Caduceus says, in a very generic sort of way.

“You’re really great to talk to,” Molly says into his flask.

Caduceus smiles.


	7. Jester's Not-Joke

> caleb and jester are both under the impression that the other is in love with Fjord and are Pining and Suffering about it?
> 
> * * *

 

“But that’s ridiculous,” Caleb says, and becomes even more confused when Jester stares back at him, totally aghast.

Caleb waits for the rest of the joke - was it a joke? - but she gets to her feet and walks out, her hand over her mouth. Caleb blinks at the closed inn door a few moments before leaning back against the wall and replaying the conversation in his head. Again. Third time. He can’t find an explanation that covers the entirety of it. Finally, with an irritated grunt at himself, he pushes his attention back to his spellbook. He will copy this scroll if it takes another hour.

**

“Caleb? Are you decent?”

He looks up from his paper, wincing at the ache in his back and looking to the window - barely any time has passed at all! He’s never going to get anything done. “Ja, Nott, come in.”

She hurries in quickly, locking the door after her. (Why?) “What did you say to Jester?”

They’ve had conversations like this a couple times. Recaps or explanations, usually after Caleb’s either missed something crucial or said something completely damaging. “I don’t know,” he says, letting the exhaustion leak into his voice. “At first, I understood. She came in, she was serious, she told me, ‘I am not mad at you anymore, for the fireball.’”

“The one the succubus made you fire,” Nott rehashes.

“Ja, that.” Caleb shuts his eyes, trying to will away the perfect memory of his friends’ faces as the blazing heat launched toward them. It takes a few moment. “So I said, you know, ‘thank you, and sorry, again’…”

“Of course she’s not mad at you anymore, she never should have been mad. Those beasts took advantage of you and you weren’t yourself.”

Coming to his defense as usual. “And then she told me, a joke? I think? But it did not make sense, and I said so, and she got  _very_  upset? And left?” Caleb peeks an eye open. “If she told you something, or you know what the hell I did, please tell me.”

Nott’s rubbing her chin, using her free hand to scramble up onto the bed on the other side of the room. “She basically said you blew her off, which, in context, I don’t think whatever it was was a joke. You have perfect memory, tell me what she said.”

“Okay, but I’m not trying the accent.”

“That’s fine.”

Caleb nods and takes a breath, thinking back. “’And,’” he quotes slowly, feeling out the rhythm of the words, “’I think also, I maybe figured out why I was so upset in the first place?’” He lowers his voice a touch, only now realizing he raised it for Jester’s voice. “’I do not know why you need extra reasons, you trusted me and I hurt you.’” Back up a little in pitch: “’Because you mean a lot to me, Caleb, and maybe, maybe I call you stinky and things, because I don’t know how to… I don’t knowww, I’m still trying to figure it ouuut, but you’re very handsome and smart, I guess, and, uh, you know what I mean?”

Caleb pauses her to share the expression he gave at the time, which is one of obvious lack of understanding.

Nott looks weirdly worried about this recap so far.

All he can do is resume. Pitch up again: “’I don’t  _know_ , I guess I wanted to, you know, if you aren’t with Fjord or anything,’” “’With?’”” “’I’m trying to tell you I like you, but maybe you have a crush on somebody  _else_  so it doesn’t  _matter_.’” “’But that’s ridiculous.’”

End replay. Caleb looks to Nott, who’s staring at him with wide golden eyes, and so, for extra clarity, Caleb adds:

“That’s the whole thing. She stared at me and looked very upset and left. Normally she jokes about sex and things, but I think this is…?”

“It’s not a  _joke_ , Caleb.”

“Right, but, what is it, then?”

 


	8. Widomauk: Tarot Cards! Post-Battle Amnesia! H/C!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I never quite got this story to hit the right notes, so I didn't finish it. But in the interests of logging everything on AO3, I'm sharing it here.

Molly wakes up and hears waves crashing. Somewhere far away.

He rolls to his side to fall back asleep, but something sharp and unbearable strikes through his chest. Molly cries out and curls tightly into himself, brows coming together, and somehow that makes the ache in his head come to the forefront - is it new? Has it always been there? - almost audibly painful as if pressing from the inside out. He curls tighter, but it only makes his chest feel worse.

“Stop it,” a familiar voice says sharply, and something pulls his shoulder back to lay him flat again. The sheets feel cool and soft, damp in places, gritty in others. Molly frowns in discomfort, somehow unable to come to full consciousness. Maybe unwilling. Between his physical self and his physical environment, it might just be best to wait it out and check the conditions again in a few hours.

**

Molly’s head is… something’s wrong with it, maybe. It doesn’t feel like a regular headache. His chest,  _that_  feels familiar. The sharp hot burn of a slash, a blade most likely, but it’s… it’s his  _head_ , there’s a faint awareness that he’s not all there, like that precarious moment when you realize you’re too drunk but it’s too late to do anything about it.

Drunk. In the wagon with Gustav and Yasha after another night of just barely breaking even. Cheap ale. Yasha lets him lean half his weight against her in the walk back to his bedroll. How long ago was that?

“Yash,” Molly mumbles, hopeful.

“No,” a male voice says.

Molly knows that voice but he can’t place it. He tries to think of people he knows, to try to compare the voice, but all he can think of is dark soil under his fingernails, the Tower card under his fingertips, the swords in each hand, the…

“Jester,” he tries, and forgets who that is as soon as he says it. Jester helps, right?

“Jester already healed you. She’s got nothing left. Be still.”

Something about that voice. “Ace of cups. Reversed.”

“What?”

Molly doesn’t know.

**

Molly’s mouth is dry. He frowns and focuses on opening his eyes, on waking himself properly, so he can get himself some water. As soon as he starts to move, he realizes he’s sitting, propped up on pillows, and someone is moving, making the bed dip - he is on a bed - and when Molly opens his eyes, a human is there, a man, with red hair and plain robes and a cup.

“I know you,” Molly says, and the man looks quietly angry. “I do.”

“I  _know_ you do,” the man says, faintly accented, and holds the cup out to him. The cup is beautiful china, with a painted scene of a garden on each side. He looks at it for a while, trying to focus his eyes, before drinking. The water is tepid. He drinks more, and then there is none left.

Molly hands the cup back. The man takes it and gets up from the side of the bed, putting it on a small service cart that has a pitcher, more cups, each matching and without a chip among them. “They’re pretty,” Molly observes.

There is a line between the man’s brows, worry and anger both. He looks at Molly. “Can you remember your name?”

“Molly,” he says. Then, to be more exact, “Mollymauk Tealeaf.”

The man breathes out and seems to lose some of his anger. Some of his fear. “That’s something,” he mutters. The accent is from somewhere Molly can’t name.

“What else would you like?” Molly offers. He feels like he’d like to give this man enough to make him happy. Not just for the water. Perhaps they’re friends.

For a while the man doesn’t say anything, just looks at his face. The waves are still crashing. Beyond the windows of the room, to the left, far away. Molly’s eyes drift toward the light of the window, the moments before sunset, where he can see some sky and a tree that just barely reaches high enough to wave in the wind.

“Can you remember what happened today?” The man asks.

Molly tries. “This house,” he says. “Someone… awful owns it.”

“More or less,” the man agrees. “And you really don’t know who I am?”

“I do,” Molly says, although it’s not entirely true. “I know I know you.”

The man looks scared again. Hurt.

“Hrrrr,” an animal says, and Molly blinks as a cat he didn’t notice before hops up from the floor to the foot of the bed, arching calmly in a stretch and tilting its head toward the man. He seems almost embarrassed by the animal, looking away at first and then reaching out to stroke it. Molly watches this man in the robes pet the-

“Your robes,” Molly says, and tilts his head. “They’re nicer.”

The man’s eyes widen.

“They’re - you’re Caleb. Your robes were…”

“Last week,” Caleb says quickly. “The acid ate at them. I had to get new ones.”

Acid. Last week. He’s not sure about last week, but he remembers a beast that spat… something. Jester’s coat. Nott’s bandages. “A spider.”

“Ja. Yes.” Caleb moves closer, sits back down at the edge of the bed, almost within reach, and Molly finds himself wishing he were closer. “Do you remember now? Tell me more. Keep going.”

Molly finds this a little stressful, but goes along with it. “We had to go into its pit… to find something. That child who’d gone missing.” He reaches his hand out to the cat, who considers it a moment before picking its way across the bed and pressing its head into his fingertips. Molly pets it and gets distracted by the ornately stitched coverlet he’s under. “This is all expensive,” he remarks.

“This is the governor’s house,” Caleb says, and as soon as Molly hears it he knows it’s true. “The cultist.”

Molly frowns. “We came here to -” He looks to the door, looks around, but Caleb waves a hand.

“He’s dead.”

“Oh.”

“We have leave of the house for the night. Jester healed the servants, lifted their curses.”

Jester. “Get Jester,” Molly asks softly. His chest still burns. His head still doesn’t feel right.

“Jester already saw to you,” Caleb says again. “She’s got nothing left. You were - you didn’t see the people in the basement. They needed it more.”

If Caleb says it, Molly trusts it to be true. Still, it’s worth complaining about. “My head,” he says, and doesn’t say any more. The cat has noticed that he’s stopped petting him and has laid down opposite Caleb.

“You fucking terrified us,” Caleb says. That bite of anger is back.

Molly frowns and sits up a little straighter, in spite of the pain. “I-”

“You  _ran in_  and  _dropped like a puppet_.” Caleb’s voice is unsteady. “You nearly died. If Jester hadn’t - your - the dagger itself was nothing, but the psychic damage it did to you almost -”

“I’m here,” Molly says, but that doesn’t seem to do it.

“Do you know how much it  _kills_  me to see you bloody on the ground, Mollymauk!?”

_The chariot, reversed._

“I’m sorry,” Molly says, because he can see how tightly Caleb’s hands are curled. As he becomes more aware of himself he’s becoming more aware of Caleb, Frumpkin, the room around him, and the air is thick with tension and Caleb looks like he’s in pain.

_The sun, reversed._

“Don’t be sorry, be  _careful_. Please.” Caleb’s jaw is clenched as he turns away, fussing with the china cups on the cart a moment before moving to the door.

_The moon-_

“Before you go.” Molly knows this will probably anger Caleb further, but he has to ask. “Would you get my cards out of my coat?”

As predicted, Caleb gives a stiff sigh, but he moves to the pile of belongings in the far corner, rustling through it all before tossing the wrapped deck onto the bedspread. “A card is missing,” Caleb says, not looking at him. “Jester left one at your grave. I don’t think anyone ever mentioned it.”

Molly shrugs and doesn’t say anything. Caleb walks out, and soon, Frumpkin follows him.

It’s getting dark. Molly unwraps the cards and shuffles them, tempted to look to see what card is missing but already, somehow, knowing.

Taking a breath, Molly tilts his head and silently asks the Moonweaver if she has a moment.

He lays down the seven of wands, reversed, and rolls his eyes. “I know, thank you. But he’s got reason to be overprotective considering he’s seen me dead.”

On top of this card, he lays down another, covering it. The four of wands, reversed. “Well, sometimes if you don’t know what to say, it’s best to just apologize and leave it at that, right?”

Five of pentacles, upright. Molly rubs at his face. “As worried as I ever get, I suppose. I was really hoping to have a pleasant and uncomplicated adventure with this group and it… hasn’t worked out that way.”

Two of cups, upright. “Yes, I know.”

Nine of cups, upright. “Yes, okay.” He leans back against the pillows, wincing a little. “I guess I knew you’d say that.”

Ace of cups, upright. Molly snorts. She’s repeating herself to tell him that’s all she’s going to say. Fine. He touches his forehead and shuffles the deck back up, wrapping it in its cloth and setting it on the bedside table.

“When I’m feeling up to it,” he murmurs into the growing darkness, “I’ll say something to him.”

**

He wakes up once to the sound of thunder crashing. As his eyes blink open, he sees the faint light of dusk outside. The branch of the tree outside is lashing against the side of the manor. The sound of the wind is drowning out the ocean.

He pushes his shoulders back into the gentle support of the pillows and closes his eyes again, letting himself drift back to sleep.

**

When Molly wakes up again, Jester is using her tail to shut the door behind her, balancing a four-legged silver tray with different breakfast foods on it. He smells animal fat and eggs. “Morning, sleepyhead,” she says quietly. “Do you have little hammers in your skull, still?”

Molly frowns, not sure he parsed that correctly. “Come again?”

Jester rests the wooden tray over his lap and sweeps his bangs from his eyes, feeling his forehead. “The book downstairs is in Sylvan, but Caleb read it for me, and it said psychic damage from weapons can be like a hangover that also makes you forget, like,  _everything_ , but it’s usually only for a little while.”

“Yesterday was awful,” Molly admits. “Today I feel mostly normal.”

Jester squints her eyes as she takes her hand back. “Who am I?”

“A beauty,” Molly returns without hesitation, and Jester giggles and leans forward to give him a peck on the cheek. “Seriously, though, I did have a bit of a moment when I woke up, but I’m myself now. Whoever that is.”

“Well, we’re happy to have you back.” Jester tugs his shirt open a little further and Molly sits up straighter, letting her investigate the healing cut. “How bad is this?”

“It’s not the worst, but I’d appreciate it if you’d put a little something into it.” Molly’s eyes flicker to the deck on the bedstand. “I promised someone I’d get something done today.”

“We don’t have  _shit_  to do today,” Jester says, barely paying attention as she puts the bandages back into place and plunks down in an armchair across the room. The arm rests, Molly notices now, end in intricately carved lion heads. “C’mon, eat something. The freed servants made that stuff just for us.”

“The – oh. They’re still here?”

“Most of them still need looking after,” Jester says slowly, pointing to herself. “Some were locked up downstairs and couldn’t  _waaalk_ , and they’re okay, now, but a lot of them have little marks and cuts from the stupid ritual things, and technically, they’d be okay if we left, but you know, better to heal up the weird rune scars instead of leaving them, you know, to be rune scars from some stupid ritual…”

“Especially when they’ll cook in exchange,” Molly slices a sausage in half with the edge of his fork and tries a bite. He doesn’t feel hungry, but he should definitely eat this. “How’s everyone else holding up while you play nursemaid?”

“Fjord and Beau went and talked with some people in town, and they’re going to handle all this after we’re gone. I don’t know if they mentioned the stuff we’re going to take with us, buuuut,”

“Nobody needs to know if a couple candlesticks go missing.”

“Yeah,” Jester agrees, and Molly is now very curious what ‘candlesticks’ have made it into her haversack since he got laid up. “So that’s Fjord and Beau, and then Caleb’s doing some spell copying in the library.”

Molly thinks back. “That library.” It was huge. “How much can fit in your–”

Jester barks out a laugh, surprising Molly. “That’s what  _Caleb_  said! Actually, it looked really spooky in there, but a lot of those books are just boring history stuff, and  _bloodlines_ , and things about the town, so the really evil stuff, and the powerful stuff, that was only like a stack like…” She holds her hand over the ground at about rib-height.

“Nobody in town needs those,” Molly confirms over the rim of his water glass.


	9. Clayvorre - braids and sketches

Jester and Beau have helped each other with their hair for some time now - it wasn’t long until Nott and Yasha were invited into this before-bed tradition. It’s more important on the road, when fighting and traveling cause everything to get messy.

After a day traveling through a bog, the circle of combs and detangling has more work on its hands than usual. As usual, Jester finishes Beau first, who gives a thank-you grunt as she continues her work on Nott’s braid.

“Caduceus,” Jester calls toward the campfire, mildly surprising the rest of the circle. “Do you want your hair done?”

“It is long like ours,” Yasha remarks, fingers gentle on Jester’s scalp.

“Caleb’s is past his ears too,” Beau adds thoughtfully.

“Yes, but I don’t think he’ll let me fix his,” Jester says to Beau. “But you can invite him over if you want, and do his, he’ll probably let  _you_ fuss with it.”

Caduceus comes over with a curious tilt to his head, both hands on his staff. Jester has noticed he rests more weight on it after a long day of travel. “Hello, Jester. What did you say? I’m afraid I was somewhere else.”

Jester wiggles her seated position toward him a little, making a space in front of her without making Yasha have to move too much. “We’re fixing each other’s hair, do you want to sit?”

“He might be too tall,” Nott comments from her place in front of Beau, not turning her head. Their set positions are fairly strategic.

“I can slouch,” Caduceus says with a smile. Jester beams back. She watches Caduceus lay his staff on a dry spot and get comfortable in front of her, resting back on his elbows. His pretty pink hair is still shiny in  _most_  places, but also dull in several others, with little dried leaves and bark flakes hidden in the tresses.

“We have a new member,” Yasha says with approval.

“I’m gonna put  _braids_  in it,” Jester declares happily.

“ _Ask_  him,” Beau chides. “He’s not a random pirate you can just tattoo, you gotta be nice and ask permission.”

That seems fair enough. “Caduceus, can I put braids in when I’m done cleaning it up?”

When she feels his ears twitch up under her fingertips, she smiles and feels her cheeks tinge dark blue. “Sure,” he says. When she starts to put the comb to the ends of his hair, gentle as possible, his head drops just a little lower in front of her, content and relaxed.

**

Jester’s colored pencils only have two pinks - one is a very dark magenta, and the other is a soft rose. If she is very light with the soft rose, it is fairly close to Caduceus’s hair color.

Jester draws Caduceus’s pubic hair over his erect penis as she talks to the empty room.

“And I know you always say to look for opportunities, and I sort of see it like that, because I’m learning a lot of stuff that the romance books sort of never talked about. Like, when he smiles at me, I get a funny sort of warm feeling in my stomach, and they talk about that a  _lot_ , but also, when he smiles because I  _made_  him smile? Like I said something funny or just something to make him happy? Those smiles are like wayyyy better. I don’t think I’ve ever read about that.”

Jester switches back to her grey pencil and does a rough sketch of a warm smile, the apples of the cheeks risen with the eyes made crescents. There’s no immediate response, but that’s not uncommon at all, and she loses herself in the drawings before a soft thought breezes through her mind, just a whisper:

_I can see he makes you happy._

Jester beams. “He  _does_ ,” she agrees. After a thought, she switches to her dark blue pencil, and adds a second smiling face next to the first.


	10. Clayvorre - repotting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is because of Cait's lovely piece, which you can see in its full glory [here](http://caitercates.tumblr.com/post/185139966995).
> 
>  

“I kinda wish these windows faced the street,” Jester says wistfully.

Caduceus watches her smiling down at the little blooms. The streaks of paint on her face dried hours ago, and the light peppering of soil is a charming new layer. “I”d normally agree, but with no sun, it hardly matters whether they’re facing east or west.”

“No, I didn’t mean about the light…” She reaches out, fingertips unusually gentle as they brush against the edge of a petal. “I just wish other people in this city could walk by and see them, that’s all.”

Caduceus hadn’t thought about that - flowering plants never grow around here, and in spite of how old elves tend to live, and perhaps live again, it’s likely they haven’t ventured far enough to see how different things can grow far away from their home.

(Caduceus, who has spent his whole life until now becoming intimately acquainted with just one forest, can understand that.)

“Well, if we move the little table to the living room window, and make a new ball of light tomorrow…” Caduceus tilts his head back and forth, picking up the plant and considering it. Jester pulls her hand back and then returns, tracing another petal’s shape. “Nobody sleeps in the living room, so I don’t think the others would mind if our solarium project moved into the shared space just a little bit.”

“And then we can share it with the townsfolk.” Jester giggles. “They’re already coming to stare at the tree. We can make it a bigger show.” She leans in, as if about to tell the plant a secret. “You hear that? We’re gonna make you famous.”

Caduceus really does finds Jester rather charming.

“Doesn’t it smell nice in here?” Jester looks up at him and beams, breathing in deeply to illustrate. “It kinda smells like where we found you.”

Faint hints of rich earth, and the smell of green growing things. A little simplified, but then again, the Blooming Grove is more familiar to him than anything or anyone will probably ever be. The gentle scent of decay, the waft of new mushroom spores by the river. The sound of the water over stones.

“Caduceus?”

“Sorry,” he says, used to himself getting lost in thought. She hums, unbothered. “Some parts are the same. Some parts are new.”

She tilts her head as he sets the pot back down. “What are the new parts?”

He pushes a stray lock of hair from his face, then puts his hands on the table. Inhales slowly. Out. In again. Listens to what his nose and his lungs tell him.

He smiles.

“What is it, Caduceus?”

“Paints, mostly.”


End file.
